Companion Cube
by Lilytooth
Summary: A oneshot about the life of the Weighted Companion Cube and it's interactions with test participants. T only because it talks about people dying.


I used to be someone's daughter, and I was brought here on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. I came a little bored, and never got to leave. As part of an experiment I was turned into a cube. My thoughts, knowledge, and memories were transferred into a box by an insane, curious robot. I am the Weighted Companion Cube.

Within my time here there have been some patterns I've noticed amongst the testing of the machine's, GLaDOS's, test subjects. One is that they are all promised cake, another is that they are all given portal guns, they all grow attached to me, and they all are killed by GLaDOS. Even after my voice was disabled I could hear, see, and feel these things happening, even if the later test subjects were unaware of this fact. She was repeatedly told that I was not alive, and couldn't speak.

Even though I was no longer human, even though I couldn't move on my own, my mission became to find the promised cake. It was a hopeless mission, but that was why I went on it. It was something that could keep me busy forever. However, from the day I came as a human, I was promised that I'd get cake after the test was over, so maybe it did exist.

I was there for many test subjects, who I guided along. In return I asked them to help me get the cake. I wasn't asking for much, and I was helping keep them alive. Many of the test subjects were a bit startled I could speak, but I assured them I was just a piece of machinery like GLaDOS, that I wasn't alive. Technically I was being honest, and it was a lot easier than explaining who I was. I wanted them to have hope. I wanted them to continue on with hope, and with me as a guide. It was the only way I could reach my goal, and it was helping them reach theirs. Their goal was another thing they all had in common. To stay alive and get out of there, possibly with the reward of cake.

Over time there were some things that changed. GLaDOS started to get annoyed with me making things easier for the test subjects. One in particular had been able to survive about a week in her test chambers. She went a bit crazy, and began to write parts from poems on the walls to honor previous test participants, "the cake is a lie" as a warning to anyone in the future, and things such as "help" and "go that way". These messages upset me. She was trying to spread a truth to help people, and it was making my work seem hopeless. No one but GLaDOS was ever going to meet their goals here. GLaDOS was also upset, this woman was being too helpful to future test subjects and I was the one that allowed that.

GLaDOS had her throw me into a "incinerator". It was actually a portal that led to a room where GLaDOS changed my programing so that I could no longer speak. However, I continued to be given to test subjects. I figure GLaDOS probably found it fun to watch how they reacted to me. She was curious along with being an murderous robot.

Progress moved even slower after that, if I had even been making any progress toward the cake in the first place. The test subjects couldn't know my goals, and they died faster without my help. They still considered me a friend. Probably because I wasn't trying to kill them in a place where everything was dangerous, and GLaDOS talked about me like I was alive. They didn't know I was aware of them, but they would pretended they thought that because they found it comforting. Things were repetitive at that point. Every moment was beginning to get boring, even though I was watching people die all the time.

Then the final test subject came. She was a young woman, and I assumed she'd be like all the others. She was smart, fit, and was certainly getting through the Aperture Science test courses faster than most people. She was different in other ways too. She wasn't as attached to me. She mostly ignored GLaDOS. She wasn't panicking as much as most of the others. I've theorized that she might have been brought here simply to destroy GLaDOS. After all, that's what she tried to do. I'm not sure if she survived.

She was the one that brought me to the cake, by being a threat to GLaDOS. GLaDOS prepared for what she saw coming by storing important things (such as back up parts for herself) in a safe room before the woman took apart the main part of her. She got me there by having the woman drop me into the "incinerator." The cake was in that room. I found it. I had won, I had met my pointless goal. GLaDOS was rendered unable to move or do much by this woman, who GLaDOS later told me was named Chell.

Now that I was with the cake I didn't know what to do. I couldn't eat it. GLaDOS was unable to test anyone, and we both couldn't go anywhere. I continue to be living empty, lonely, pointless days where all I do is think and listen to GLaDOS complain, and watch her attempt to figure out how to rebuild herself. I wish that I could at least have my voice back, so I could at least talk to GLaDOS, and insert my opinion on how horrible she is for making me live a horrible, pointless, not-really-a-life. But I can't. I can't speak, and I have no ability to do things of my own. I don't even have people to observe, I just have GLaDOS. Of course she doesn't have anything to do now either. She has no goal she can complete. I've always hated her, but I'm beginning we aren't that different. We're both robots who filled our lives with pointless repetitive goals to have something to do in this pointless existence where we need nothing and we aren't needed. If I ever get my voice back, maybe I'll tell her this. Maybe we can find a meaningful goal in life together.


End file.
